Both Delta and United Airlines are calling on Congress to reopen the government with a clean continuing resolution (CR).
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that air traffic controllers, as well as individuals at the TSA and the FAA, are working hard and keeping the skies safe despite the government shutdown.
“They’ve minimized delays. Fewer than two percent of flights have been delayed so far because of air traffic control shortage. So they’ve done a great job, but it’s putting stress on people. It’s not fair to those people. It’s also putting stress on the economy,” Kirby said.
Noting that this is Day 30 of the shutdown, he said:
You know, the first couple of weeks has had no impact on the economy, but as every day goes by, the impacts start to grow. And airlines are a pretty good real time indicator of the economy, and we start to see still minor but steep booking impact. And you see that happening in the economy. We put the whole economy at risk.
Kirby said while he does not have a position on how things should ultimately be settled with healthcare – which Democrats are pretending this is about – he said it is “time to pass a clean CR.”
“Use that as the opportunity to get into a room behind closed doors and negotiate hard on the real and substantive issues that the American people want our politicians on both sides of the aisle to solve,” he added. “But let’s get a clean CR and get that negotiation done behind closed doors, without the pressure and without putting the American workers and the American economy at risk,” he added.
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Similarly, Delta is also calling on Congress to “immediately pass a clean continuing resolution,” which is precisely what Republicans have offered from the very beginning.
“Missed paychecks only increases [sic] the stress on these essential workers, many of whom are already working mandatory overtime to keep our skies safe and secure,” Delta said in a statement.
The demands come as Democrats continue to keep the government shut down over partisan demands, including $1.5 billion in new partisan spending and a manufactured battle over healthcare – something Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has pointed out is a completely separate issue that deserves its own attention.
“They created a red herring. A red herring is a distraction. They decided that they would pick a fight on healthcare. Let me look right into the camera and tell you very clearly, Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare,” Johnson said nearly one week into the Democrat shutdown.
“Republicans are the party working around the clock every day to fix healthcare. It’s not talking points for us. We’ve done it. A big part of the one big, beautiful bill, the working families tax cut, was to fix healthcare,” he said. “Health care is broken in America. It’s too expensive. The quality of care needs to rise. We need more access for more people, and we have lots of ideas to do that,” he continued, explaining that the debate for that issue is planned to take place in the next few months and “always was.”
“They’re two totally separate things. The clean continuing resolution would simply keep the lights on so that the members in the House and Senate can have those debates on healthcare. We were always planning it. We have lots of ideas on the table on how to fix it,” he added.
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